life is Torah, and suffering received with love

’Life’ is the Torah — ‘choose life’ (Deuteronomy 30:19), ‘for it is your life’ (30:20). To merit it one must ‘despise the pleasure of the body,’ bear ‘the yoke of the commandments,’ and receive suffering (yisurim) ‘with love,’ not protesting ‘why do sufferings come upon me though I serve and study.’ ‘Who knows the mind of the Holy One?’ — one must say over all, ‘You are righteous, O LORD, and Your judgments are upright’ (Psalm 119:137), ‘all that they do from Heaven is for the good.’ Sod: the classic doctrine of yisurin shel ahavah (chastisements of love, Berakhot 5a); the ‘complete way of life’ (§ 150) is won by accepting the divine judgment as just and good.

the crown, the throne, and the tefillin

The ‘throne’ is here ‘the crown (keter) of the Holy One’ — and the three crowns of Israel (priesthood, kingship, Torah, Avot 4:13). A parable: a beloved vessel set sometimes on the head (the tefillin of the head), sometimes on the arm (the tefillin of the arm), sometimes lent to the son, sometimes called ‘his throne,’ borne on the arm ‘like an amulet (kame’a), like a throne.’ Sod: the one grade is crown, throne, and adornment by turns — Keter worn as the tefillin of the head, the arm-tefillin bound below, the ‘son’ (Tiferet) seated with it; the wordplay kame’a / kise (amulet / throne) binds the crown to the seat of glory.

keter

Selected sense: the-supernal-crown

Active senses: the-supernal-crown, crown

Rationale: § 152 identifies the throne with ‘the crown (keter) of the Holy One,’ and invokes the three crowns of Israel (priesthood, kingship, Torah). Rendered ‘the crown’; the frame hears Keter, the supernal crown, and the crown as the highest grade borne like tefillin.

Lexicon: lexicon/keter

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